Survival of the Tastiest

Food tasting events are the ultimate.

It's a land of unlimited food and drink. You pay a base price and then you walk around and eat as much food as you possibly can. I had the opportunity to go to a "tasting" last night and I made some interesting observations.

First, people are barbarians. It's something about unlimited food that make people primitive and on the hunt. They enter, sniff around and find the best food possible. Then they go in for the kill again and again and again - to the exact same restaurant.

The event I went to last night had about 10 restaurants there - three of which were any good. The cost to get in was $90 (don't worry I paid nothing). Everyone who attended ate at the only three good restaurants that were there: Outback, Carrabba's and Bonefish.

Since they paid $90 to get in, it suddenly became their main goal to eat $90 worth of food at Outback, Carrabba's and Bonefish each. Myself included. I had two servings of Bang Bang Shrimp from Bonefish. (If you have never eaten this before, you have not lived).

My second observation of the evening was that even attendees (hunters) of tasting events are extremely lazy. They don't want to move more than 15 feet to get to the nearest restaurants (the hunted). Which simply means that the first three restaurants you see (if they are serving decent food) are bound to be the only place you hang out all night. Suddenly as if by magic the same 1,000 people are eating in a rotation which goes something like this:

1. See Food.
2. Smell Food.
3. Get in line for Food.
4. Eat Food.
5. Start all over again.

The combination of good food and good location results in zombie like food worshippers who are all fighting to get a bite. Which means two things: free entertainment for me and 7 restaurants who had a lot of left over food.

In a quick walk through of the other food areas every single restaurant that was on the outskirts (and who also happened to be serving not very good options) had literally no one at their station. Food was plated up, and ready to be passed out but no one came. No one cared. Why would any body go out of their way to see what Beef O'Brady's was serving when Bonefish had Bang Bang Shrimp?

To move this scenario outside of the food tasting world, think of the 3 closest restaurants to your house. Do you eat their often? If you don't, why not? Do they have poor options and bad service? If you haven't been there or thought of going there in the past week then they are doing something wrong.

If the observations I made last night have any connection to the "real world" than we know one thing must be true. There is only one way to survive - to be the tastiest.